


Tumblr Oneshots and WIPs

by Velundr



Category: Compilation of Final Fantasy VII
Genre: Alcohol, Soulmates, Theft, Time Travel, assorted one offs and wips as i find them, tumblr backfill
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-12-16
Updated: 2018-12-16
Packaged: 2019-09-20 13:32:00
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 7,870
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17023512
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Velundr/pseuds/Velundr
Summary: Assorted fics and bits belatedly imported from tumblr.





	1. Sung from the Soul

The youth of Gaia sang.

They began the moment they learned their first song and continued until one of two things happened: either a young voice petered out as they gave up looking, or they found one to sing with them. Though they called it many things most called it the heart song.

There was a growing group that felt that ‘heart’ was not precisely right if not entirely wrong, but Cloud was inclined to disagree – loathing was just as much a matter of heart as love after all. He'd seen a few heartsongs end in hate, and it was not uncommon whenever a superstitious singer should find themselves in unplanned duet of a sad or angry song that they went out of their way to avoid the other. Country songs about a girl and truck were generally considered a bad sign, even among those who liked the style. Cloud himself had once witnessed a pair break into an honestly phenomenal rendition of ‘When You’re Evil’ one memorable karaoke night and watched as they promptly exchanged basic contact details so as to never meet again, something he’d found kind of disappointing. He knew a couple back home who’d lived a long, devoted and wondrously happy life after connecting through a song literally called ‘The Betrayal’ and a set of long friends who’d never heard each other sing until they were drunk at the bar and ‘You Give Love a Bad Name’ came on.

Really it was fun when it happened but it was just some kind of chocobo shite, if you asked him.

The whole thing was arbitrary, no one really knew what it meant, and it could happen many times through a person’s life. Hells, it’d happened to Cloud three times – once as a child with a Tifa and a folk song about someone’s love at the fair, again much more recently with Zack Fair when they grabbed dinner after a mission and again an hour later when they, excited, went to demonstrate to Zack’s girlfriend Aerith and she’d joined in. They at least had all tried dating together but apparently ‘Uptown Funk’ wasn’t conducive to that, but best friends who slayed together? That it could do. Or something. But that was was what they told people.

Which was a lot to say that deciding something was bung didn’t make his heart beat any slower when it happened again.

They’d been sent to Wutai to deal with a bug problem that had been deemed below the attention of the SOLDIERs manning the base there. Cloud questioned the cost efficiency of a SOLDIER or three who were already there versus shipping in a squad plus a SOLDIER with higher materia clearance, but he wouldn’t wonder too hard because that was Shinra for you, and he was getting paid extra for the job anyway. They really did need the SOLDIER though, since only he and Phan were allowed any materia, and those were only low level cures – not exactly helpful against thunderbirds approaching their swarming season, or worse, those turtle things.

(Adatai? Adaments? Ada-something. The squad consulted itself in whispers, debated, considered, gave up and called it turtle dad.)

They were assigned a mixed blessing; mixed, because Genesis Rhapsodos was a legend, but the kind of legend that could become a terror if he decided he didn’t like them. Cloud for his part knew he was safe, having met Genesis through the hyper social roller coaster that was Zack, and he seemed to like him. The downside was that that meant Cloud had to find increasingly sketchy excuses to be quiet and aloof or absent or someone would notice him pretending that he could manage multisyllabic words around the magnificent man. Or sentences at all.

Thankfully no one had noticed yet – and you could bet your best rations the squad would give him hell when they did – but they’d mostly been hiking and fighting in relative silence, grunts of effort under the heavy, humid canopy and yes-sirs to orders, interspersed with the occasional “Syler get your ass out of my face” (“But what if I’m into that?” “Someone throw a canteen at him.”) until the others started trying to give each other ear-worms.

Rhapsodos let them be for a while, but eventually put his foot down.

“As entertaining as this is, you’re scaring off our prey.”

Whether by volume or off-key singing he didn’t say, but the smirk he wore suggested that latter.

“I don’t suppose that counts towards ‘clearing them out’ sir?”

“‘Fraid not soldier.”

Unfortunately for Cloud he didn’t stop them soon enough – by the time they found a nice little overhang up a hill and just below the trees to camp under for the night ‘Alejandro’ had been circling his head on and off for nearly four hours. Better than poor Diaz humming ‘The Song that Never Ends’ but still annoying enough that he nominated himself for one of the first watches, snagging the coveted high ground ‘with actual sky for real’ post. Gathering his dinner and equipment maintenance kit (bug guts were the worst) he climbed up watch for death from above.

Above the trees he could see that the hill was technically probably a mountain, but time had eroded its edges and long years of growth had buried its feet leaving a low, rounded plateau surrounded in a sea of green, darkening under the dying light. It reminded him a little of the lowlands near home – the wrong trees of course, no pines in Wutai – with it’s low old little mountains peeking though the sea and the line of jagged peaks in the distance he could almost imagine it. And so while he’d thought to chase out his worm with something new, as he set to work cleaning his gear he chose something older.

“There were three rawens sat on a tree~”

He finished his cleaning before the sun dipped behind the mountains and the sky deepened behind the stars, singing softly all the while. There were, he thought as he packed his things away, a concerning number of murder ballads such as the one he just finished, and he could understand that having met his neighbours in Nibelheim, but they were balanced by just as many soppy ones, with the odd heroic or tragic one thrown in for spice. Soppy, he decided, was a better fit for the view. With maybe a little mystery.

Two bars into a romance so old that the meaning was lost though the story remained and he was no longer singing alone.

Genesis was a little ways off – Cloud distantly noted that he must have been scouting and come up another path across the plateau, either to check on him or just as a quicker route back. If whatever magic was in the heartsongs would allow it Cloud thought he might have passed out from his blood suddenly relocating in a full body blush or choked into silence, but it wouldn’t and instead forced them to sing it and remember it in whole as Genesis approached with a considering look at a song he’d never heard but could never forget and Cloud continued dying a little inside.

The song was short at least, and after a minute or two their voices trailed into silence. All was still for a moment until motor skills returned enough for Cloud to bury his face in his hands. There was probably a noise accompaniment because Genesis frowned with a question:

“What, was it about someone’s death? Love’s who left?”

Cloud shook his head.

“Then am I so displeasing to you?”

“Wha-?” Cloud jerked up behind his palms, wide eyed, “What? No- I. Um. Shit. Ah- No. No.”

Peering over his fingers he saw Genesis watching with a raised brow.

“Shit. I- I’m sorry. I didn’t mean...” He looked down, fiddled with his scarf, and mumbled “‘s the opposite problem.”

After a moment boots moved into his view and crouched. A finger caught his chin and then Genesis was looking into his flustered face, still burning from his ears on down his neck.

“You could have said something.”

“... I’m bad at pretty people.”

The eyebrow lifted again. No shit, it said.

“Zackary said otherwise.”

“Spiders Georg is an outlier an’ doesn’t count.” Aerith too. Those two were their own category, but the answer startled a barking laugh out of the other man.

Genesis released his chin with another snort and rolled to settle next to him.

“Fair enough,” he said, voiced coloured in amusement, “but I’ll not have one of my soul mates too shy to even talk with me. But you’re relief’s not due for at least an hour. So!” He nodded to himself out the corner of Cloud’s eye. “How about we start with you telling me what on Minerva’s green Gaia we just sang?”


	2. Erstwhile (WIP)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Consider it the prologue.

When the observation booth door closed behind Lazard it took too much effort not to sag in relief – he couldn’t. Not in front of the other Directors, not right now. But reporters. Ech.

Heidegger caught it anyway. “Gya,” he scoffed, commiserating in this at least, “Still on about the recruitment numbers?”

“If only. They know the levels are fine. No, they’ve sent Arbour and her ilk.”

“Ah, the gossip rags.” He paused to take in the field and dismiss it. “Anyone interesting?”

“Not hardly.” He looked over the training grounds, milling with recruits so green their sweats hadn’t a speck of dirt on them, though that would change as soon as the sergeants made their way from the podium to the field. “Only Anna Dias, and she wasn’t interested in the press conference.” Not much a conference. “She was scoping the courses.”

“Hrmf.”

Lazard rather agreed. It was what they were nominally there to do, not that there was much to see. The little training fields housed obstacle courses, the field, track, a few basic workout installations and a small range out near the rear of the compound – this was a small facility, one of several, and existed primarily for the boot-camp about to begin below. There was little to say of the recruits themselves either, only input to the system in the last few days after their initial medical check – no wasting time on those who didn’t pass. Likewise, paper tests would follow and psych evals after that. Some outstanding individuals might be offered mako testing at the end of the program, but they wouldn’t have a good starting picture for at least two weeks, and the reporters – Dias – wouldn’t see any of that.

He really shouldn’t see it or need to either, come to it, but such was PR.

Thank Shiva for one-way mirrors.

Lazard picked a seat by the window – may as well keep an eye out – and pulled out a data pad.

Palmer was dozing in a back corner, a plate on his lap, when Lazard raised his head some time later. Heidegger was in deep conversation with Scarlet – that never boded well – and Tuesti was gesturing was he showed something to Veld, likely some new tower renovation plan by the actual interest in Veld’s eye. That or sketches to update to the training facilities. Reeve was often distracted with shiny carrots like that.

Down below the recruits were racing through one of the obstacle courses, covered in mud, new cloths new no more. He’d been able to pick out a few until the mud pits, but now only one stood out by virtue of being a human tank. He could halfway pick a handful of smaller ones, slight enough that they had to be potential Turks – even from a distance he was fairly certain they didn’t meet the height requirements for infantry and definitely not for SOLDIER. Aside from the odd spectacular wipe-out it wasn’t particularly riveting. He couldn’t see the stands but doubted the reporters were much more interested than they were.

As such he was the first one to see the light.

He was about to turn back to his work when it started, a glimmer on the ground that shimmered and moved. He noticed in distant horror at the greenish cast of it that it was under someone when it burst in a pillar of brilliant, undeniable lifestream.

It blazed like a tower on fire, too long and too hot, before it slowly began to crumble under the weight of itself.

Several people were swearing.

(“There isn’t even any mako here!” Reeve managed to sound vaguely affronted under the breathlessness. His prospectors would hear about this.)

The light slowly dimmed and he could see the Sergeant making headcounts at the gates leaving of the fields. Gods help them if they’d lost anyone.

On this day of all days – the press was going to have a field day.


	3. New Year's Blessing

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Genesis attends a party.

The air inside the ballroom shimmered. Lights glistened gently under fronds and blooms, on tables and in corners, glittering against garland and tinsel alike. The table arrangements were subtly luxurious, silks and linens and imported flowers whose rich and precisely chosen colours tutted at the very thought that you might afford them.

Genesis couldn’t see any of it at the moment, tucked between a lavishly decorated pillar and a window. He twirled his champagne flute – a delicate crystal affair whose finely etched vines scattered rainbows across his fingers – and tucked it neatly into a pocket to join his other two. Four would make a nice set.

Others had been far less discrete and settling them stalled his restlessness for a moment at least. Besides, it wasn’t as though they’d be missed. He’d been attending ShinRa parties for years and never seen a repeat of anything but the venue – the Tower’s grand ballroom, the President’s Costa estate and the old Kalm Castle traded the honours between seasons. The Castle had a better atmosphere for holidays, and room for an orchestra besides (currently playing something bright and not quite a waltz) and so was the regular centre of New Years celebrations.

Baying cut above the music and murmuring.

Genesis cringed; somewhere, Heidegger was laughing. But worse was the tell-tale clip of Angeal’s squared shoes coming to a rest outside the curtains.

“Gen.”

He wilted.

“You have to come out sometime you know.”

“No I bloody don’t.”

“You’ll regret it.

“I will not.”

“Lazard will make you regret it.”

“Let him try.”

“Just twenty minutes, that’s it. A dance or two–”

“And a dozen increasingly desperate partners cutting into each.”

“It’s tradition,” Genesis could hear Angeal’s cheeks puffing in annoyance. “You used to do it too. We both did.”

“They didn’t look at us like fresh meat then.”

“They don’t now!”

He growled: “Not to you – everyone and their grandmother knows you’re off the market.” That tended to happen when one’s soulmate was fucking Sephiroth. “I however get passed around like a cheese platter.”

Pushing past the curtain Angeal levelled him a look: “We both know it’s not that bad. Besides, hiding isn’t worth the hassle PR will give you for it later but they won’t care if you’re visible ‘til midnight.”

Genesis sulked. He wasn’t wrong – he’d tried that route before.

Angeal sighed: “I have wine.”

“Fine.” Snatching the glass – the last to line his pockets – Genesis stepped away from the wall: “But as soon as that bell goes I’m gone.”

His friend eyed him, tiredly amused and probably too tolerant.

“I never expected anything else.”

No one ever quite believed how deeply Genesis loathed these kinds of parties, and always had. From his parent’s posturing society affairs in his childhood to the ‘invites’ from his employer to the genuine invitations he received as a celebrity of sorts, it didn’t matter. Large and impersonal, filled with hangers on and greased palms, and him ever in the thick of people he couldn’t stand – so many of them hoping for that thrill of a feeling that would mark them as something special to him – up to the moment he could slip away, only to emerge for food and drink until it was socially permissible to leave. New Years wasn’t normally too bad. It was the only occasion that he ever won his freedom as early as midnight though at the cost of the dances, whirling quicksteps through partners in a vague hope of finding that one in time for a lucky midnight kiss, something that was actually quite fun if you wanted to be there. Genesis, however, didn’t and he was unfortunately rather sought after, and he was edgy besides – had been since he’d arrived, tipping over with a need to go out and run or fight or do something… and so instead Genesis had hidden away sooner that normal. It was technically counter productive, but it saw him stepping of fewer toes and biting them off.

“Just find someone to dance with,” Angeal said, distracted and moving off to rescue Sephiroth as he spotted him in the clutches of an overeager fan.

“Yes, yes. Abandon me why don’t you,” Genesis muttered without heat and knocked back the drink.

Sephiroth hated parties at least as much as Genesis but was too in-demand to hide. Genesis had tried occasionally to bail him out himself, but all it ever managed was to get them both stuck in the spotlight. He offered a sympathetic thought but moved on. His boyfriend would save him or nothing would.

He straightened is cuffs and his tie. He smoothed over his hair. Adjusted his jacket. Heaved a breathe and with the rest of his nonexistent wrinkles patted away reluctantly moved out.

It was easy to slip to the dance floor. Most party-goers not dancing were settling into their tables and social circles for the lead up to midnight leaving the way clear to cut in to the current waltz, leading away a young woman who looked in need of rescuing herself. Half a turn around the polished marble saw the startled but grateful girl slipping away to the safety of friends and replaced by the first person of the night to have their upturned smile falter at first touch.

Genesis really hated parties.

The next gentleman was no different, nor was a lady to follow him, nor either the fourth nor seventh. The tune changed during his twenty seconds or so with the eighth, the tenth held on for half a song to enlighten him as to the Sector Three Humane Society programmes which was something of a novelty and nearly a relief but the fourteenth saw a pair whose follow and pair whose lead were trying to position themselves as his next dance. Genesis decided then that he was done, publicists be-damned, and led gently towards the floor’s edge.

The follow realized his intention and wasn’t having it.

What followed was entirely avoidable.

The interested lead was nearest skirting along the edge of the floor and well posed to sweep in and exchange her partner with his had Genesis not been about to bail. The keen follow was a few paces further away but he was deeper into the dance and about to be cut off by a third pair, twisting by in conversation. The follow decided to rush the closing window of opportunity, and in that moment the dance entered one of its wider steps. Genesis bowed and begged off from his partner, the lead stepped away from hers, and the dancing pair spun wide- right into the keen follow who rammed into the lead dancer sending him into Genesis and both to heap on the floor; Genesis bumped his partner on the way down and she was caught in a tangle by the interested lead who staggered sideways under the sudden weight knocking table on the edge of the dance-floor and scattering food while her partner darted back just in time to catch the fallen dancer’s partner’s suddenly untethered spin. The keen follower stumbled to a halt in the midst of them.

There was a moment of buzzing silence before the chatter around them rose back up.

Actually the buzzing might have just been Genesis.

He counted to five.

“Well,” he drawled, gaze sliding from where his fingers hummed under the hand of the fallen dancer to the suddenly remarkably reluctant follow, “if I weren’t already done, I certainly am now.”

“Er, sorry?” The blond man on his legs pulled his hand away – oh and the silence in his bones was cold – but he only stood, unwinding from Genesis’ legs and offered it back. Genesis let himself be pulled up – how could he refuse? – and hushed him.

“There’s no fault with you, dear.” He glared at the retreating follow but it softened at the tingling brush of knuckles. He couldn’t even be mad at the nitwit, really. “Though I think some air might be needed.”

The other man seemed at a loss for words.

“I- Yeah… yeah. That’d be good.” He paused, “Just a sec.” He turned to his dance partner, “Sorry, Ester? I’m go-oh? Oh… Never mind?”

Only then did Genesis notice the silence around them had grown again, turned not towards his absent wrath, but the only two still both standing. Ester looked rather like how Genesis felt.

It was a funny old world, sometimes.

It might have been tradition, but the odds of actually finding your One in time for New Years were ever against your favour. It was considered lucky for the party as a whole for it to happen and doubly so for the couple if it was early enough to ring in the year together. Two in the same place in the same accident was absurd at any time of year.

Glancing around it seemed that no one had noticed him and his blond, and the congratulations were starting, so Genesis gave the fingers by his hand a little tug before weaving towards the garden doors. Peeking over his shoulder revealed a bewildered little smile a few steps behind.

The glass doors to the garden balcony were thicker than at first glance – double paned or security glass he supposed – but swung noiselessly and cut the chatter of the party from a dull roar to less than a murmur.

The blond stepped lightly past him, eyes that were merely bright inside – whether by light or shock or delight – were now truly glowing as they inspected the vacant grounds, gardens glossed over in a gossamer sheen by the glow from the curtains. It painted a pale and glittering crown across his riot of hair; Genesis fingers twitched, wondering if it was as soft as it looked, and where he’d been posted that he hadn’t seen him until now, distinctive as he was.

He’d always been drawn to uncommon things.

“I suppose-” the man cuts off, lifting his cuffs from the balustrade to slick a finger along it – it came away damp with dew, but he only shrugged and leaned anyway. “I suppose they’ve all gone in for the countdown.”

“Mm, no doubt. It’s any minutes now.” Genesis joined him with and amused huff. “Quite the timing we’ve managed.”

“Heh, yeah.” He laughed softly. “That… really just happened,” he murmured, straightening a little.

‘Genesis reached out in answer, giving in to the impulse to brush a few stray locks curling along the man’s neck. (It was that soft- it was positively downy.) The pleasant jolt along his fingers was met with a startled snort of a laugh. Genesis grinned devilishly:

Ticklish!

Breathy and bright eyed he took a step from the railing and, facing him fully for the first time, offered his hand: “Cloud Strife.”

He used it to draw him a little nearer: “Genesis Rhapsodos.”

“You hardly need an introduction.”

Cloud was looking up at him, and Genesis decided then that he was in trouble. Cloud had a lovely face, with a faint blush on his cheeks, a touch touch of coyness in the slant of his head, and a determined set about his eyes and shoulders, but that smile, oh.

“Maybe. Maybe not. But it only seems polite to give a name to someone you’re hoping to kiss.”

That smile. It had actual wattage.

Distantly there was counting.

“Are you now?”

“Mm-hm. Tradition, you know.”

“Not a bad one.”

“One of the better ones, I thought.”

It was not sparks, as some said, or a singing in his veins, the kiss, but a steady humming somewhere between touching a live wire and the feel of soaking heat when sitting before a fire which spread out from where they touched. It rose and settled down into the recesses of his soul, faded until long parting roused it. He felt warm and calm and charged all at once.

He rested his forehead against golden spikes, noting vaguely that their arms had wound about their waists. He’d only meant for a brief kiss, but suspected it’d been rather not.

“Wooo!”

Definitely not.

“Go boss!”

“Fuck,” said Cloud. “I forgot they were here.”

Genesis felt an arm lift and gesture.

“Rude,” one voice accused.

Cloud’s arm moved.

“Right-o. Leaving.”

“You do that.”

The sound of happy people washed over them and vanished again.

Cloud’s hand settled back with a sigh.

“Didn’t even hear them come out. Your unit?”

Cloud made an affirmative noise. “Not sure how we rated an invite, but yeah… Also you’re kinda comfy.”

“… You too.”

“It's kinda weird. Nice. But weird.”

“That too,” Genesis agree. He paused, considering for a moment and said:

“Other people are going to start coming back out soon…” He hesitated and Cloud lifted his face too look at him. “I was going to head out – do you want to find a pub or a diner or something? Talk?”

“Sounds good to me.” Cloud leaned back in thought. “There’s a place on Elmwood that’s probably open. It’s not too far.”

“Anywhere. Anywhere you like.” He took his hand as they turned to the ballroom. “We’ll have to cut through, though – no climbing the courtyard walls.”

“Aw.” Cloud said, mock dejection in his voice, and teased: “The voice of experience?”

“I’ll never tell,” Genesis replied, opening the door.

“Don’t worry. The gossip rags already did.”

Genesis pulled a face at him and Cloud eyed a waiter who was cutting through the crowd ahead of them thoughtfully.

“What?”

“Do you suppose anyone would notice if I nicked a glass?”


	4. unnamed c/g

__

_Crishhhing-tok_.

Genesis jolted from his reverie at sudden scraping of metal on stone by his ear.

Cloud grinned down unrepentant, chin, arms and pauldrons resting on the stonework of the wall.

“Miss me?”

“Not if that's how you greet me!”

“Aw,” he pouted, “you don't mean that.” When Genesis glared he widened his eyes. And then again a little more.

“... That's cheating.”

The younger man chuffed. “No such thing,” he laughed, “but you'll forgive me in a minute, I promise!” He said as if Genesis hadn't already and dropped down, nearly out of sight to stand of the road, lower than the park paths and benches on Genesis' side of the wall.

_He must have been on his toes_ , he realized, a smirk tugging at his lips as he listened to Cloud's rifling through his bag.

“How was your mission?”

“Piece of cake,” was the distracted reply. “Spent more time waiting for the transport to come back to town than hunting that snake, to be honest.”

“Sounds familiar. Anything interesting?”

A small noise of triumph. “ _Yes_ in fact.”

A small parcel in rough paper was set, gently, upon the wall at this back. A glove nudged it forward.

“Take it!”

He did so as Cloud found a toehold and settled more comfortably on his elbows.

“You know,” Genesis eyed him, “you could just jump it and sit like a normal person.”

_Shrug_. “But where's the fun in that?”

He waved queryingly at the bundle, so Genesis turned to it.

“Not a commentary on my reading materials I hope?” Because there was nothing it could be but a book.

“Only in that I hope you'll like it,” was his soft reply.

Cloud's wrapping job was as charming as ever – paper craft was not a skill of his – but heavier than usual and padded at the corners with tissues, and it was easy to see why. The little book was old, pages stained and aged, creases marking places once of someone's interest, and corners dented though the supple leather of the halfway familiar cover was well cared for. No author was listed, and the text, a collection of poems, had never had a proper name. It was sometimes simply called 'Sonnets' though more often it was dubbed 'Beloved,' a cheeky nod to its sister text, Genesis' most favourite book.

He gently turned thin pages. “Cloud-”

“The seller didn't know what he had, I think,” Cloud murmured, watching Genesis's face, “I don't know enough to know if it's real or not, but even if it's a fake it's old. I thought it might have a place in your collection?”

At the hopeful tone Genesis looked up from tracing lines. He probably would have it tested to satisfy his own curiosity if nothing else, but that was for later. He softly closed the cover and set the book beside him before twisting to face Cloud.

And dragged him in for a kiss.

  


 


	5. Ghost Apples

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> On a post about ghost apples.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> https://cloudvelundr.tumblr.com/post/143235400984/

It takes years, but the trees do grow back, though they are not Banora Whites anymore. Or not Dumbapples anyway.  
The trees grow tall and wide and crooked, nothing like the sweeping grace of the old boroughs. The new fruit is pale as new fallen snow, foreign and striking as it ever was. Its scent is curiously cloying but it sits blandly on the tongue: coarse and tasteless. It darkens to its former glory only when damaged.  
There is poetry in this, Genesis thinks, ghost fruit of dead trees and a orchard of ash, but he cannot stand to see it.  
He takes a cutting anyway, somewhere between penance nostalgia and hope, and does not return.  
It takes years, but the branch grows.  
The fruit comes early.

It’s purple. 


	6. misremember

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> do you ever just smell an old perfume, or hear an old song, or pass an old hangout spot and kinda break inside for a couple minutes

He hesitated at the door, then stepped inside. The inside was dark and not so musty as he thought it should be, but the boiler was in the corner – it had the right dents where he’d hit it once playing knights inside for the last time before his mother kicked the game out. The counter was pristine and scrubbed to a shine, and she would have accepted nothing less. With as little as they’d had they took care of what they did, like the tapestries on all the walls and the old hand-carved bed frames tucked into the corners. (It took him forever to peel the stickers off of his – his punish for sticking them on to begin with. No old glue remained.) He gently spun the great globe on it’s perch and it squeaked once, the noise of a thing hardly used and unused to movement, but did not tick with tiny clotted gears. Neither did the grandfather clock – the right shape and the wrong face to be his grandfather’s clock – where it sat motionless on the far wall with no hands to set it moving. There were no boxes under the bed with old embarrassing toys and posters. (The ones of him.) The grime on the chair he dropped heavily into did not lift under his nails – not grease or dust or wear at all, but a too dark varnish pretending to be patina. The table had neither water stains from mother’s many vases nor scratches from years of use. He raked his fingers across it. 

They’d at least gotten the wood right.

Tifa sank into the other chair, head shaking. He hadn’t heard her come in.

“This is so wrong.”

Cloud just buried his face in his hands.


	7. Predecessor

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He should have guessed.  
> Repost from my ff dot net originally. Parts of Cloud’s original design were used for Angeal - in universe flip plus mako as fertility drug slash anti-birth control :P

When he was presented with the medical readout it had been difficult for Angeal to believe. Oh, he had known that it was possible, even probable – nearly every SOLDIER did – but like most hadn’t paid it much mind. After the first few had come forward, causing a PR nightmare turned opportunity, the hubbub died down as it became accepted that, barring abstinence, every SOLDIER over twenty-five probably had a child.

He still hadn’t expected it of himself. Angeal had never really been one for one-night stands or hurried affairs, though that wasn’t to say he hadn’t had any. But his past girlfriends had remained, for the most part, good friends: he would have known if one of them had conceived. His few imploded relationships would have let him know, and if not mutual friends would tip him off. Even the thing from the abyss that Amy had turned into would have contacted him if only to suck him dry of child support. So, really, he should have known.

But he would have paid this boy no mind had he passed by in the street. He likely had passed him in the halls of the training complex. It was unusual for a SOLDIER son to go so long unremarked in the Cadet Corps, as most were picked out as they arrived by the tell-tale eye-glow, faint though it was. But if there was no resemblance the glow could have been written off as a natural effect. Any person who lived long enough in the Nibel Mountains would gain a Mako sheen: it was the same in Mideel, around the southern Eastern Continent and in some parts of Wutai where the ground levels were high.

And yet there sat Officer Cadet Cloud Strife who strongly resembled his mother, a camp follower and brief fling Angeal was relieved to be rid of even over fifteen years after the fact. Still, when he watched though the glass as the boy received the news, telling details began to talk. The eyes, lightly lit, belonged to Angeal’s mother, though he himself had missed them. A softer jaw, angled like his own. The same nose, the same startled little frown he had caught in the mirror too many times. A slimmer and shorter – much shorter – frame, an echo tempered by the slender mountain blood in him. 

And he began to believe that he could have a son. 


	8. Heterochromia

He wasn’t sure when it happened but he’d been feeling a bit _off_ for a few days when the other boy – a sturdy villager he’d just caught picking from his family’s orchard – pointed it out.  
“Oh hey!” he blurt, distracted from the rant that had kind of maybe gotten a little sidetracked and leaning off his branch over where Genesis was talking at him. “When did your eye change?”  
“Wa-what? My eyes haven’t changed!” He stomped a foot, “and you! Don’t go distracting me!”  
“’M not try'n'a distract you – that’s eye’s just bluer is all. And you’re the landlord’s kid aren’t you? They usually don’t shut up about you so I figure it’s got to be a new thing. Did it just happen or what?”  
When Genesis only frowned suspiciously at him he dropped sighing from his perch:  
“C'mon. _C'mon_ ,” he grunted, “if you don’t believe me I’ll _show_ you.”  
And sure enough, there in the face blinking back at him from Gillian Hewley’s stained old mirror were his eyes – different now then they’d been after his bath that morning. Resisting the urge to press his nose to the glass he instead peered curiously at his left eye. It certainly felt no different but it was just as certainly changed, now the blue of a midsummer sky where before had been only his own familiar stormy grey.

* * *

 

Angeal slapped his hand down: “Don’t _poke_ it! It’s still your eye!”  
“I wasn’t going to!” He was.   
“You’re finger was right there - _yes it was._ ”   
“Was not.”  
“Was too.”  
“Nu uh.”  
“Was. _Too_. … Mom says everyone does it.” Angeal huffed, not quite pouting.  
Genesis wrinkled his nose, a faint echo of Mr Rhapsodos standard sneer. “Did you?” he asked, glaring at Angeal over his shoulder in the mirror. Brows darkened at him over grey and honeyed brown.  
“No. I was too little. Mom said I was only two months old when it changed, but it’ll be weird after I meet them.”  
“Huh.”  He supposed that made sense. It would likely be a lot like this now, with the eye that was not his in his face, but worse, because it would have been there longer. After all, if they honey-eyed person was nearby they’d have met already, so they would have to travel. And no one had been talking about so-and-so having babies so he guessed he would be in the same boat.  
“You know,” Angeal shifted, a little reluctant, “you’ve probably got a better mirror if you wanna see it clearer.”  
“I guess… My parents are going to want to know.” But he hadn’t seen them lately and kept getting left with the staff. Not that he minded Hesper, his usual minder: he was going to show _her_ first. But for now?   
“Do you want to see a really good climbing tree?”  
  
In the end they had been in the same boat – one leaving the islands for Junon harbour which was as close as Genesis could get them to Midgar in one ship.  
It was strange moving from a small town where every one new everyone and all their business to a big city where no one did – and almost everyone’s first act upon contact was to stick their faces in yours, whether for their own benefit or that of someone they knew. Genesis supposed he was flattered by the attention (Angeal was too – just far _far_ more embarrassed) but he knew his age mates wouldn’t find what they were looking for in him. Though he did keep an eye out for his friend, and it wasn’t like he couldn’t have a little fun in the meantime.   
After all, the eyes might mean they were meant to be, but no one ever said be what.  
They made it through infantry on the SOLDIER cadet track with great speed and moderate fanfare – mostly self-provided while Angeal groaned as if put upon by his theatrics but failing to hide his smile (and maybe he quietly join a few refrains, but you heard nothing, hush) – Genesis bound for the mage cadres and Angeal the shock troops. They had absorbed every bit they could about the programs, every little thing about SOLDIER and SOLDIERs they could find, but they had still glossed over one rather obvious thing.  
Almost all SOLDIER eyes were blue. Both eyes.  
Genesis watched Angeal, frowning at the glass of their shared bathroom mirror, a faint line forming between his brows. The mako glow had overwritten both his own misty grey and his soul mates’ warm honey. Still, he took an uncertain breath and forced a smile.  
“Well, I guess it’ll be a surprise.”  
Genesis said nothing. Mages it seemed were the exception, though strong emotions and adrenalin could briefly blot out the colour, something about having strong mana or at least control over it protected whatever magic hinted at their future: the piece of sky in his left eye was only a little brighter than before.  
“Though,” Angeal chuckled a little, remorseful but genuine enough to startle Genesis, “Do you suppose they’re out there somewhere, making confused faces at their mirrors too?”  
“New career goals maybe?”   
“An eight-year old with a mako eye and ShinRa propaganda? Absolutely. But.. maybe not mine though…”  
“Tourism, then.”  
“I guess? They’d probably ping the Turks or city guard radar. But what if they can’t afford to come?”  
“Then go find them.”  
“When? You know what our rosters are going to look like.”  
“Fake monster attacks to lure their big strong SOLDIER.”  
“That.. would be dishonourable.”  
“Real monster attacks.”  
“… Please stop helping.”  
“But you’re making such delightful faces.”  
“Gen- ”  
“No.” Bopping his friend’s nose he decreed: “ _What we are going to do_ is break into the VR rooms every time they’re free, steal some materia and train your ass off. The older SOLDIERs got their colours back – you can too.”  
And that was what they did. Between assignments and missions and courses and drills they slipped into whatever room was available. It was hard work: Genesis had never taught before and Angeal wasn’t half as able with magic as he was, but they learned – both of them. Angeal was best paired with lightening and barriers while Genesis could handle anything with flair, and fire with almost nothing at all. Sometimes they broke for physical work. It wasn’t fair, Angeal thought, to focus on his problem and he wanted to return the favour though the hand-to-hand practise fell short of meaning what the magic did.   
Truthfully, Genesis had been surprised by the determination in his friend, but then he hadn’t lost anything had he? And even if he had he at least remembered having nothing but his own eyes, and he hadn’t been planning on looking for their match anytime soon anyway. The kid was what? Eight? A child half his age while Angeal felt like a life long friend had died.  
So they trained – for months, in every spare moment, long past the point of usefulness.  His eyes stayed blue.  
  
Sephiroth’s pair-eye had always held a level of fascination for him, with a strange almost iridescent quality whenever whatever medical had pumped into him didn’t override it completely. At turns glassy and liquid, neither Genesis nor anyone else could make any sense of it, and Sephiroth himself would say nothing on it.  
It became quite obvious when Angeal brought them his new student and each of their eyes turned grass green.  
“No. _Way_.” Zackary Fair was fit to burst – and did so in Sephiroth’s direction. The man seemed not to know what to do with the sudden armful of teenager, but also appeared awkwardly pleased at the excited stream of chatter – mostly questions.  
“-there’s another of us I wonder where they are we’re gonna have to find them and do you like-”  
Genesis shut the door.  
“Let’s give them a moment,” he chuffed softly, “Did you know that would happen?”  
Angeal sighed. “I wondered – I mean really it’s not like there aren’t others like them, but what are the odds it’s going to be _Zack_ of all people? I did warn Seph anyway.”  
“Good of you.” He pressed an ear to the door and smiled, “What do you want to wager that he answers each and every one of those questions, in order, the moment he takes a breath?”  
“No bet.”  
The addition of Fair to their social circle wasn’t much a burden, as much as the younger mans exuberance tended to irk him he was charming – just as much as Genesis himself could be, boyish smiles where he was suave manners – and he was drawing Sephiroth out of his shell with more success than anyone else had had so far. If he was being honest with himself Genesis knew that he would like Zack whenever he eventually calmed down, but until then he would snark and send prayers that his own match was a little more _contained_.   
They probably weren’t; he probably deserved it.  
Though one thing he did notice was the missions.   
None of them had been sent below the Plate since Zack and Sephiroth had met, and the Turks were giving the pair odd looks, but no one else seemed to have noticed. Or Sephiroth had (the looks, at least) but was probably attributing it to the wrong things. He suggested they might complete their triad somewhere in the slums, and Zack was sent out but was never quite able to out sneak the Turks who always seemed to have some distraction or other ready, and it wasn’t worth Sephiroth trying. He had enough trouble dealing with the Slums when the Turks weren’t actively thwarting them whatever their reasons were.  
Still, while fate might derail occasionally there were some trains you had to let go to the end or their lines.    
Genesis was on a plane half way across the Corel Sea, sent to inspect the northern circuit of reactors, when Angeal called in to make a panicked rant. He could hear the wind whistling by the phone as the other man jumped (or possibly flew) down staircases, heading for Below.   
“ _The floor grate gave  - Zack’s fell._ ”  
It was a long hour waiting for the next call, but it came with good news:  
“ _He’s alright,_ ” he sounded like he wanted to cry – whether from relief or absurdity was debatable: “ _And you were right. Their third is down here – he nearly landed on her. Apparently Seph’s supposed to have brown eyes. Who knew?_ ”  
“Huh.” How much mako was in that man? “… So the plant failed inspection?”  
“ _I- wha? Urgh._ You _are an_ ass.”  
“You’re welcome.”  
  
The tour had been mostly uneventful, but he’d left the oldest and least attended for last and would probably pay for it. The Nibelheim reactor was one of if not the first of the commercial/industrial models constructed, and was almost completely automated, lacking even guards due to its remoteness despite the mountain range being known for some of the most dangerous wildlife on the planet. Frankly most of it could potentially do a lot of damage to a sensitive power station if they got in. And if it was dragons even if they didn’t.  
His team arrived in the associated village nestled in a conifer filled valley around midday and after setting up in the inn was released to explore. The trek up the mountain was apparently quite long and they would need the full day to hike there and back and get their work done in between. He suspected they would be at least a few days. Joy.  
He got himself settled and had just made it outside when he was accosted by a young teen, staring contemplatively up at him through dark lashes.  
“… Can I help you?”  
“You’re a SOLDIER right? It’s just one of the boys went into the woods a while ago and hasn’t come back,” she scuffed a shoe, “would you mind looking for him? I’m getting worried.”  
The doe-eyes did it.   
Genesis sighed: _teenagers_. Why was the dangerous wilderness always so appealing? Of course he’d have been right there leading the pack out at that age, but never mind that. “Sure. Can you tell me what direction he went?”  
“Mmhmm! Thank you - he left that way, out by the manor. Oh! And leave the wolves alone if they don’t bother you.”  
  
 _Leave the wolves alone_ , she said. The damned things had to be three times his size! _Leave them alone!_   
The great beasts were enormous. He had known that they would be but text book details weren’t real, and the VR sims had clearly been down played – by a good half ton. They were large and beautiful and glaring at him, and they were obeying the small teen he’d thought he was rescuing. Mostly obeying.  
The kid made an effort to squeeze past the wall of fur and muscle that blocked him from the SOLDIER (“ _No, Fenrir! Ptah. Ew hair._ ”) spotted him and made a double take.  
“Oh. Ah, hi?” He hopped free and drifted cautiously nearer, glow leaving his eye. They stayed bright.  
Of all things, he got the wolf whisperer.  
 _Well_ , he thought, _I knew it’d be interesting_.


End file.
